The picture-postcard image of snow-blanketed festive scenes has become synonymous with Christmas thanks to Charles Dickens, Bing Crosby and, frankly, the entire Hollywood festive film output. In the UK, a white Christmas is officially announced by the Met Office – and it is a responsibility they don’t take lightly. Here, Craig Snell, a senior operational meteorologist, shares how a white Christmas is defined – and why we are all so snow-obsessed.
“Up until the late 90s, it was one person’s job to stand on the roof of the Met Office building in central London for the entirety of Christmas Day just to watch for snowflakes. Not the best job at Christmas, but that’s how it was done. Back then, snow had to fall directly on our (now-defunct) HQ in London for it to be a UK white Christmas. The rest of the country could be covered in snow, but just one snowflake needed to hit that roof for it to count.
Thankfully, the criteria has changed. Our official definition of a white Christmas is a single flake of snow falling from the sky anywhere across the UK within the 24 hours of 25 December.
It can fall anywhere in the UK, from the Highlands of Scotland to inner-city London, between midnight on Christmas Eve and midnight on Christmas Day.
As meteorologists, our first ports of call are 200 observation stations dotted around the UK. Some are manned by people and, thanks to technological advances, others in really remote areas are operated automatically. Either way, they report to us in Exeter every half an hour. We can also use our radar network (the maps on TV forecasts) and keep an eye on Twitter, now known as X, for any leads.
Technically we had a white Christmas last year, but only 9 per cent of our stations recorded snow falling and only in Scotland – not exactly the most memorable white Christmas.
I’m working Christmas Day this year and will be keeping an eagle eye on the forecast. I’ve been working for the Met Office for 16 years and we’re always on that knife edge – will it be snow? Or will it be rain? It’s a special day, as we all make predictions on where snow might fall first.
It’s funny to think people start asking me, “Will it be a white Christmas this year?” from early November, which does get quite tiring in the run-up to the big day. I mean, you wouldn’t want to know at the beginning of June whether it will be sunny on 25 July – no one asks me that.
Snow is one of the hardest things to forecast in the UK because the Atlantic Ocean acts like a hot water bottle, keeping our country warm. In fact, we are more likely to have a white Easter than a white Christmas, but when have you ever associated Easter with snow? It’s all about rabbits and daffodils and spring.
But we’ve had our moments with white Christmases. We have reliable records of snowfall dating to 1959 and the last widespread snowfall we had on Christmas Day was in 2004, with 61 per cent of our stations reporting new flakes. By fluke, we had two consecutive white Christmases in 2009 and 2010 – before that, you’re looking back to 2004, 1995 and 1981 and 1970 as white Christmases that matched the picture-postcard expectations. I’m sure older generations have these snowy years etched into their memories. But that ties more into nostalgia than reality.
It is understandable: snow features in Christmas films, songs, cards and decorations. There is a unique romance to a white Christmas that dates back to medieval times.
There are a couple of reasons why white Christmases are rare in the UK. One is that the climate is undeniably warming, which decreases the chances considerably. The other main factor comes from nearly three centuries ago, when we changed the calendar in 1752 from the Julian to the Gregorian. That shifted Christmas Day forward by 12 days from around 6 January to 25 December. Our coldest months are January and February and while December isn’t exactly tropical, you reduce the chances of a white Christmas by bringing it into a warmer month.
But even though we have almost lost the chance of snow at Christmas, we all still hold out hope.
![Craig Snell - Met Office forecaster Image supplied by craig.snell@metoffice.gov.uk](https://wp.inews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/SEI_184768776.jpg?w=760)
If a new snowflake is recorded on Christmas Day this year, our chief meteorologist will liaise with the climate and observation teams to check there are no errors or faulty equipment and, when everyone is happy, we get the word out. First we notify the other forecasters and our media team, who declare the news on social media and tell the likes of ITV, the BBC and the press.
What throws a huge spanner in the works is lying snow. If there is lying snow (snow that has settled) and no new snowfall on Christmas Day, it’s technically not a white Christmas. A good example of this was in December 2010, a bitterly cold month. There was 83 per cent ground coverage in the UK but only 19 per cent of our stations reported snowfall on Christmas Day. The headlines declared a white Christmas and people woke up to magical scenes, but I’m not sure it actually counted.
White Christmases have always been a big deal for betting companies and for a good few years we had the power to make or break their Christmases takings. Now, most have their own criteria to verify snowfall similar to ours in the old days. Snow will have to fall on one chosen location, such as the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, the Coronation Street set in Manchester or Heathrow airport, for it to be a white Christmas. But the official definition for the UK is still ours.
As told to Judy Cogan